Medical imaging plays a central role in public health. TRAIL (Translational Research and Advanced Imaging Laboratory) was accredited in July 2011 to make the most of the multidisciplinary and translational capacities of the Bordeaux medical imaging ecosystem. The teams are developing a research portfolio dealing with major health themes: neurology, oncology, cardiology, pneumology and nephrology.

Making the most of the Bordeaux community’s skills, the research is based on seven scientific modules:

Interventional Imaging and HIFU guided by IRM

New imaging sequences

Dynamic nuclear polarization

Tracers and contrast agents

Biological markers in bio-imaging

Mathematical simulation and modelling

Cohort imaging methodology

The teams are concentrating on four main missions:

Federating the scientific community through multidisciplinary translational imaging research projects and improving Bordeaux’s position in international research.

Developing collaborative projects with international industrialists, laboratories and partners.

Accelerating technology transfer

Offering students a wide range of internationally-recognized imaging courses.

TRAIL has had a considerable impact on Bordeaux’s imaging community, by structuring research around the seven scientific work modules and by organizing multidisciplinary collaboration between ten teams from seven central laboratories.

Translational research consists of developing techniques and applying them to human beings. A good example from TRAIL is Focused Ultrasound (FUS). After technological maturation and many trials, a prototype for treating breast cancer under MRI control without surgery has been developed by TRAIL, together with a Bordeaux-based company and the University of Utah. A world first is currently under way at the Bergonié Institute. Similarly, FUS is currently being tested for treating heart arrhythmia in collaboration with the Liryc University Hospital Institute.
Translational research also involves improving existing techniques in order to understand physiopathology. TRAIL physicists and neuro-imaging specialists have just done this by improving the anatomical resolution of MRI in order to find the vulnerable zone of the brain related to...